


A Frozen Flower

by mallowmelting



Category: Odd Squad (TV)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Gen, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-11-04 22:57:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11000763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mallowmelting/pseuds/mallowmelting
Summary: Agent Orchid has a secret. She was born with the deadly gift of destruction, and her powers are growing day by day. She must learn to master her powers before the adults who seek to kill her are able to track her down.





	1. Frost

**❀ Orchid**

Orchid jumped in front of the passing agents and pointed to the floor. "STOP!” she shouted. “Dinosaurs crossing.”

“We don't have all day, Orchid,” Olive sighed.

“Seriously? Come on,” her partner added. “Is that all of them?”

Orchid gave one last sigh, then jumped up from the floor. “ _Now_ you can go.”

She turned to her dinosaurs. “All right, you three. You've been so badly behaved during our walk, we're going straight home.” She picked up the dinosaurs and began to march down the corridor to the dinosaur room.

 _Stupid Otto, always thinking I'm a child._ The thought slipped out before she could contain it. Horrified, she stopped in her tracks and clapped her hand over her mouth. Such thoughts were dangerous. _Please, please, don't come…_

But Orchid's pleas went unanswered. Blinding pain shot into her temples. Reeling, she fell to the ground.

 _Fight it, fight it!_ She repeated Ms. O’s words in her mind.

Tears streaming down her face, Orchid scrambled to her feet. But the world was already swaying—a sign she was about to lose control.

_I need to get to the dinosaur room!_

She began to sprint towards the door. She wrenched it open and caught a glimpse of her forgotten dinosaurs, lying in a lonely heap on the floor. _I'll get you as soon as this is over,_ she promised before slamming the heavy door shut.

The colors of the dinosaur room swam into Orchid's eyes. Trees turned electric blue and pulsed like the lights in a nightclub. A dragonfly's wings grew to ten times their normal size. Then the creature flopped to the ground, brown and lifeless.

 _Fight it, fight it,_  her dinosaurs chanted in Ms. O's voice.

“I'M TRYING!” she shouted, even though she knew Ms. O couldn't hear her. “I'm… _trying_ …”

She slumped against a wall, her energy sapped. The room flashed with a blinding light, then turned black and white. The world finally spun and twirled out of her reach, and Orchid was whirled into darkness. That was all she remembered.

* * *

 

Orchid opened her eyes. The skylight filtered in a cool yellow light, illuminating the dust particles floating downward. It was the calm after the storm. She was half-content to stay like that, lying on her back and watching the dusty sunrise. But she forced herself to get up and take in her surroundings.

Trees were scattered on the ground, plastic branches torn from their trunks. The wallpaper had been ripped from the walls, revealing stained whitewash underneath. A dinosaur lay on the ground, its neck severed by all but one wire.

Orchid collapsed back onto the ground and started to sob. She had failed again.

* * *

  **✎ Olive**

“What are you staring at?” Olive followed Otto's gaze. “Orchid?”

“I'm not staring at her,” he mumbled. “I'm just looking at her for a really long time.”

“Well then, why are you looking at her for a really long time?”

Otto turned to Olive. “Is Orchid's partner invisible like Oz?”

Olive was taken aback. “Um, no. She doesn't have a partner.”

“Why not? Everybody else does.”

 _You are not to tell anyone, ever, what happened that day._ Ms. O's words echoed in Olive's head.

“Um, there… isn't anyone available.”

Otto looked at her skeptically. “But she's been partnerless since I joined the squad. And we've had new recruits. Why doesn't Ms. O give her a partner?”

Olive shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “I don't know. I guess Ms. O has her reasons.”

“But why would Ms. O keep someone alone for that long? Maybe she forgot about her. You know what? Let me go up to her office and remind her. Nobody should have to be partnerless.” He got up from his desk and started to walk towards the staircase.

“NO!” The word came out louder than Olive meant it to. She winced as the whole squad turned to look at her.

“Otto, you don't want to do that. Orchid—she just likes to work alone, okay? And I don't think she'd want you interfering with her personal business.”

Otto sat back down slowly. “Okay,” he said. “I won't ask. But there's something about Orchid you're not telling me, isn't there?”

“No! No, nothing at all.”

She was suddenly very interested in filing her paperwork in the right drawers. Other than Ms. O, Olive was the only agent at the squad who knew Orchid’s secret. Ms. O didn't like to talk about it, or how the training was going.

“Orchid's not your partner, so stop interrogating me!” she'd snapped the last time Olive had asked about her. “Now go away! There are some laser chickens in the town square! What are you waiting for?” She had hurried away with Ms. O's final “GO!” following her.

“Olive!” Otto waved a hand in front of her face. “Earth to Olive, your badge is ringing.”

Disoriented, Olive looked down and saw that her badge was indeed ringing. “Go for Olive,” she said, holding it to her ear.

“WHY DID YOU NOT PICK UP?!” Ms. O shouted into Olive's ear. “I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THE LAST TEN SECONDS!”

“Sorry, Ms. O. What's happening?”

“Get to the park! NOW! And don't bring Otto!”

“Why shouldn't I bring Otto?”

“Just GO!”

Feeling uneasy, Olive rushed out of the room.

* * *

  **⬢ Oprah**

“WHERE WERE YOU?” Oprah growled at her best agent. “This is urgent! I don't want you treating this like a case.”

“It's—not a case?” she said, confused. “Then what's the problem?”

“What's the problem?” Oprah repeated incredulously. “For odd's sake, look around you!”

She sighed inwardly. Olive could be so wrapped up in something that she couldn't see what was right under her nose. She needed to fix that if Olive was ever going to become Ms. O.

“Whoa! Was it a tornado?” said Olive, looking around at the destroyed park.

“No, Olive,” sighed Oprah. “It was Orchid.”

“So I'm guessing her training isn't going too well?”

She sighed again, for the second time in five minutes. She really was getting too young for this.

“Don’t tell her this, Olive, but Orchid isn't going to get any better. All she's going to get is stronger. She destroyed this park without ever touching it. She was in her dinosaur room the whole time—I was watching on the security cameras.”

Olive didn’t seem to know what to say. She just nodded. “That’s unfortunate.”

The two agents sat there on the bench for a while, together with their thoughts. Oprah loved Orchid like she loved all her agents. She wanted the best for her, yet she feared what would happen once she became untrainable. She remembered that moonless night five years ago, when she had found Orchid standing over a dead body. Oz had been with her then. He had whispered to kill her, and Oprah had been about to… but she had been too softhearted. Could one life saved justify a world lost? That was the kind of question Oz would have known the answer to, before he had shelled out. But now, Oprah had no idea how much Oz remembered anymore, if he still remembered anything at all.

“What did you bring me here for?” Olive finally said.

She snapped back into business mode at once. “I thought you could give me advice. I guess I was wrong.” She stood up and began to stride toward the tube entrance. “Call Agent O'Hara. I want a juice box ready for me the moment I step foot in headquarters!”

* * *

  **♫ Otto**

When Olive was gone and he didn't have any work to do, Otto liked to wander around headquarters. This happened often enough that Otto could truthfully say he knew where all the important parts of Odd Squad were. That is, he knew the quickest paths to the doughnut room, the cookie room, the cupcake room, and the break room.

Since Olive had left without notice, Otto made a beeline straight to the doughnut room. He was about to pull the door open when he noticed Orchid disappearing around a corner.

Remembering his conversation with Olive, curiosity overcame him. Otto looked mournfully at the doughnut room, then started following Orchid. He could get a snack later, but this couldn't wait. Soon Orchid would be too far away to follow.

 _Why are you snooping?_ Olive's voice trickled into his head. _It's wrong to snoop. Don't you have work to be done?_

 _Work can wait,_ he rebutted. _Orchid can't._

_Why are you so obsessed about Orchid? Do you want to be her partner? Are you putting her over me?_

Otto picked up his pace, infuriated. _I don't know what's deluded you. You were never first to me, Olive. I have a family, you know!_

_Of course. A family who you lie to, every day. A family that doesn't know the real you, the Otto who pretends to go to school each day but really comes to headquarters to work with—guess who? Me!_

Otto swiped at the air, then slapped himself in the head.

_By the time you decide to leave, I'll mean more to you than your little family ever did. Just wait and see. When agents leave the squad, they leave changed. They're never truly part of their family again, because this is their home. We are their family. They'll be filled with an intense longing for Odd Squad. But they can't come back, because they took an oath. The longing infects their minds and poisons their hearts. It eventually drives them insane—_

Otto clapped his hands over his ears. “STOP IT! STOP IT!”

“Otto? Um, are you okay?”

A few yards away, Oscar was frowning at him.

“Oscar! I need to find Orchid.”

“Orchid? She just passed by. I think she was headed for the break room. Why are you looking for her?”

“Oh, um, no reason.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Tell the truth, Otto.”

“Why are you interested in what I'm doing?”

He shrugged. “I'm bored.”

“I wanted to figure out why she doesn't have a partner.”

“Wow! That's a great idea!” Oscar pulled a Sherlock Holmes-esque cap from inside his lab coat.

Otto sighed. There was no getting out of this one.

* * *

  **❀ Orchid**

As soon as she entered the break room, every agent in the room suddenly collapsed and covered their ears.

“What's going on?” she said.

The door to the break room suddenly flung open. Ms. O stood in the doorway.

“Orchid! In my office! Now! And close the door behind you!”

She walked away without another word. Orchid thought it best to follow her.

* * *

 

Ms. O collapsed into her office chair, holding her temples. “No, O'Donahue, no,” she muttered. In her normal voice, she shouted, “Orchid! Six juice boxes! Stat!”

Orchid hurried to the juice bar. When she got back, her arms full of juice, Ms. O was still murmuring to herself.

“Over a century together, O'Donahue. That's more than any agent here today can say. How could you turn on me like this?” A pause. “I loved you, O'Donahue. And you're telling me that after all those years, I meant nothing to you? Nothing?”

“Ms.… Ms. O?”

That seemed to snap Ms. O back to her senses. “Shut up, O'Donahue! You're not real!”

She turned to Orchid. “I don't want you working in the office anymore. From now on you're confined to the dinosaur room unless I call for you. No exceptions.”

Orchid was shocked. “But why? What have I done?”

“Nothing, Orchid. You've just grown, and there's nothing you can do to stop that. But your presence is making people hear voices. Fabricating heartbreaks. I can't let this happen, or everybody who's hearing _my_ voice in their heads is going to burn down headquarters. It's for your own good, Orchid. Now go. I'll bring your dinner down in two hours.”

“Not Oksana?”

“Definitely not Oksana. Go.”

The tears that hung in her eyes finally spilled over, and Orchid ran to the newly repaired dinosaur room, leaving a trail of anger in her wake.


	2. Thaw

**✎ Olive**

_Calm down. Don't panic. Keep up your guard._

Olive stood in front of the dinosaur room, trying to calm her nerves. She imagined the voices of all the people close to her—Ms. O, Otto, Todd, everyone—and let them fill her thoughts. Now she was guarded from anything Orchid might accidentally throw at her.

“Orchid?” Olive cracked open the door to her former partner's dinosaur room. “Can I come in?”

“Sure!” Orchid smiled at her sweetly, with a dinosaur in her arms. “I'm _soooooo_ bored in here. Nothing ever happens!”

Olive was taken aback. “You're okay? You're not angry, or sad or—anything?”

“I'm both, but just because I'm alone all the time now doesn't mean I can let it go. I was thinking that if I figured out how to stop it, Ms. O will let me out again.”

“Oh! Um, okay. Well, I was just wondering if you wanted to talk. I had some ideas for your training. Do you want to see if they work?”

“Does Ms. O know you're here, Sherman?”

_What on earth does that mean?_  “I'm Olive.”

“I know. Does Ms. O know you're here?”

“Not exactly…”

“Well, Sherman, Ms. O has stopped my training, so you should probably leave before she finds out you were here.”

“Why are you calling me Sherman?!”

“Does it matter, Sherman?” She stroked the head of one of her dinosaurs. “Don’t listen to Sherman,” she murmured. “She doesn’t understand.”

Olive had been trying to put up with it, but she couldn't take it anymore. “Quit calling me Sherman! I can’t deal with this anymore. Your little dinosaurs—you know they can't actually move and talk, right?”

“They can too!” Orchid's face was getting red. For a moment, Olive faltered… but now that she had started, she couldn't stop.

“No, they can't! Stop kidding yourself. It's childish, and you're just a foolish little girl!”

Orchid's face was a dark purple now, and her eyes stared without seeing. Olive suddenly realized what she had done—she'd only ever seen that face once before.

And if Orchid truly was getting stronger, well, the best option would be to—

As trees began to topple and the skylight exploded in a shower of glass, Olive ran.

In her unguarded state, focused only on getting out of that place as fast as she could, the first voice entered Olive's head.

_Remember me?_

* * *

**♫ Otto**

The agent, hardly more than a blur, ran past, almost knocking Otto and Oscar over.

“Olive?” Otto wondered at the brown ponytail disappearing around a corner. “What's she up to?”

“Do you want to follow her?” asked Oscar. Otto gave him a look. He seemed way too enthusiastic about the whole detective thing. It was kind of creeping him out.

“Um, I actually have paperwork to do, so I'm just going to do that. And listen to Soundcheck. I'm just going to do my paperwork while listening to Soundcheck…”

He backed away from Oscar, right into… Oren and Olaf. “Aaah!”

“Out of our way, _agents_.” Only Oren could make the word “agents” sound like an insult. “Olaf and I have some _very_ important work to be doing.”

“So do we!” said Oscar. “We’re trying to find out why Orchid doesn’t have a partner!”

Otto groaned.

“Orchid?” Oren was suddenly interested. “As it just so happens,  _I_ know why she doesn't have a partner. I can tell you, but we'll have to go somewhere where no one can hear us.”

* * *

“So, what's with Orchid?” asked Otto, his eyes drifting around the dusty room. It was only natural that Olaf had a room in headquarters dedicated to potatoes, but… _weird_.

Oren leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Oz told me all about her. She's a murderer.”

Otto and Oscar gasped in shock.

“A murderer? Orchid?” said Otto, disbelieving. “But she seems so… no, she's not really normal. I could see her murdering someone. Carry on.”

“The year was 2003,” continued Oren, with a mystical edge to his voice, “when a baby was born—”

“The baby was Orchid, right?” said Otto.

Oren glared at him. “Stop interrupting. Yes, the baby was Orchid, and she was born with the power of an awake—”

“An awake? What's that?” This time it was Oscar who interrupted before realizing his mistake.

“Well, since you two still have the attention span of two-month-old _babies_ , let me just skip to the end! She stabbed a guy to death, and then she woke up, realized what she'd done, and tried to run away, but Ms. O and Oz caught her. According to Oz, she should have been killed the moment Ms. O saw her. She's an aberration of nature—she was never meant to be alive. And she's going to destroy the world. There! That's it! See you later, _agents_!” Oren got up and stormed out of the room.

Oscar looked at Otto. “I am so confused.”

* * *

  **❀ Orchid**

Orchid stared at the plate of food Ms. O had brought her an hour ago. Spaghetti with spaghetti. Again. Couldn't Oksana cook up _something_ different?

On the first day of her confinement, Orchid had eaten the whole dish. On the second day, she'd eaten half. On the third day, she had only picked at it.

Now, on the fourth day, all Orchid could bring herself to do was stare at it.

Orchid thought that maybe if she stared at her spaghetti for long enough, something unusual or out-of-the-ordinary would happen. But nothing had happened.

Yet.

_It will, Orchid,_ one of her dinosaurs encouraged from his grassy perch. _It will._

“Thanks, Donna. But I don't think so.” Orchid turned her attention back to the plate.

_Come on, come on, please, can't something happen? It's so boring here, and I'm so lonely—come on, little spaghetti, start dancing around the room or something—come on, spaghetti, come on, come on—_

The plate burst into flames.

“Aaah!” she exclaimed as the turf surrounding the plate caught on fire. “What do I do, what do I do, what do I do…”

Then she felt the oddest sensation run up through her arms. It was like ice-cold water was flowing through her veins. She shook her arms to get rid of the feeling, and water sprayed out of her hands.

“Whoa,” she said in amazement as the fire sputtered and died out. “I didn't know I could do that.”

But when she tried, Orchid couldn't get herself to perform any more miracles for the rest of the day.

* * *

**⚛ Oscar**

Oscar approached Octavia's desk, where she was sketching a platypus in her notebook.

“Hey, Octavia! How's everything going?”

At the sound of his voice, Octavia jumped up from her desk, pencils and paper flying everywhere. “What? Who? Where are you?”

“It's me, Oscar.”

“Oh.” Octavia settled back into her chair. (Her super comfy desk chair—Oscar couldn't help being a little bit jealous.) “Hey, Oscar! Have you seen my partner?”

“Um, I was actually going to ask you that.”

“But you don't have a partner.”

“No, I was wondering where _your_ partner was. You know, Oz.”

“Ohhh. Sorry, I don't know. But—”

Before she could finish her sentence, an invisible hand knocked her tissue box to the ground.

“Hmm. Did I do that?” Octavia wondered as she put the box back into place. Hardly a second passed before it fell to the floor again.

Oscar stared hard into the empty air next to Octavia's desk. Sure enough, he could see the faint shimmer of a human outline. “Oz, is that you?”

“Geez!” Oz settled into the other desk chair. “Took you guys long enough. I've been standing here the whole morning! What did you want to visit me for, Oscar? Have you invented a gadget that can make me visible again?”

“Sorry, not yet,” Oscar responded, a little guiltily. He had been meaning to invent one for months, but more important things always seemed to get in the way. “Actually, Oren said something that, um, made me think—”

“What!?” Oz jumped up from the chair. “He said he wouldn't tell anyone! And I am _retired_ from that job, okay? I'm not risking another soul death!”

Oscar was confused. “What are you talking about? I meant Orchid.”

“Orchid… she’s the murderer, right? The  _fille d’étoile_ —ugh, I wasn't supposed to say that!”

_Fille d’étoile_. Oscar felt like he’d heard the phrase before. He had no idea what it meant, but he felt he was one step closer to his answer. “ _Fille d’étoile_? What's that?”

“None of your business.” Oscar felt Oz bump past him. Then he heard his retreating footsteps.

“ _Fille d’étoile_ ,” Oscar repeated. The name had a sinister feel to it, as if it was something evil. And if being one had driven Orchid to kill someone, it must be.


	3. Blessed and Cursed

**⬢ Oprah**

Oprah pulled open the door to Orchid's dinosaur room with both hands, expertly balancing a steaming plate of spaghetti on her foot. She stepped inside and reached forward to replace Orchid's old dinner—that is, the smoking, charred remains of what was once Orchid's dinner.

"Orchid…" Oprah was afraid to ask the question. "What happened to your spaghetti?"

"Ms. O!" With surprising enthusiasm, Orchid leapt down from a high shelf. Oprah wondered how she had gotten up there. Could it have been—no, it must have been just Orchid. Never underestimate the strength of one bored girl.

Orchid landed right in front of Oprah. "Ms. O, the most _amazing_ thing happened yesterday. I stayed up all night thinking about it!"

Orchid told her all about the burning spaghetti and the water that had come out of her fingers. "It's the first time I did something magical while still being conscious! Ms. O, honestly, I think I'm getting better! Can we start training again?"

That was just like Orchid, getting straight to the point. If this news had come six months ago, Oprah would have been jubilant. But now, with Orchid's powers already beginning to come into full effect, this ‘miracle’ was almost certainly a foretelling of doom. What if she saw something odd or dangerous in the future and another accident happened? The results could be disastrous. Oprah knew how dangerous an angry or panicked _fille d’étoile_ could be—she had had one too many ill-planned lunches with the Featherites.

"Have any more of these—miracles—happened?"

Orchid shook her head solemnly. "I was trying all night, but I couldn't get it to happen again. That's why you need to help me."

"Orchid," Oprah began, wondering how to say what she needed to say, "remember the Featherites?"

She nodded solemnly. "You wore a nest on your head and talked in a crazy language all day to make them happy."

"Um… yes, those were the Featherites. And—remember the volcano? The one that erupted because we had the wrong number of chairs?"

"Of course I do. Where are you going with this?"

Under Orchid's impatient glare, Oprah felt her carefully planned explanation dissolve and melt into an incoherent mess. Desperately, she tried to grasp onto whatever was left in her head.

"Agent Orchid, no more training, or else—or else the volcano will erupt again!"

 _Well, that was a disaster._ Oprah set down the spaghetti on a shelf. "And I want that plate empty when I come back tomorrow. You have to eat something, you know."

"Yap, yap." Orchid leaned against the wall and rolled her eyes. "Dream on, Sherman."

Oprah gritted her teeth to suppress a growl of fury. Orchid needed to learn some respect. If she had been a normal agent, she'd have been fired years ago. But she couldn't let someone like Orchid loose in the world, and Oprah had to admit she was fond of the young agent.

"See you tomorrow," she said, then left for her office. She had a lot of juice boxes and a lot of thinking to go through.

* * *

**⥉ Oz**

Oz thumbed through the agent files in Ms. O's office. Even after all these years, it still felt weird to move things without seeing his hands. He skipped a bit and found the section he was looking for. Agent Ophelia, Agent Opie, and… Agent Oren. He frowned. Where was Orchid's file? Maybe it had been misplaced. Methodically, he began searching through the whole filing cabinet.

He was about a quarter of the way through when something slid off Ms. O's desk and landed with a _thump_ on the floor. Oz turned to look. It was another file, its contents spilled out onto the carpet.

Abandoning his search, Oz scooped up all the papers in his arms and sat down at the juice bar. He could see why this file wasn't with the others—Ms. O had just added to it. At the top of the pile of papers was Ms. O's handwriting, written on what looked like an unfolded paper airplane. It said:

_April 7, 2015, 10:23 a.m. Going to the dinosaur room. Update later._

Oz was tempted to glean the note for any memory attached to it, but he stopped himself. He couldn’t use his powers again, ever. Or he’d have another soul death.

 _What if I'm wrong? What if Orchid isn't_ d’étoile _?_ he thought. _But then again, what if I'm right? What if I find something in this file I don't want to know?_ He slammed the file shut. "AGENT ORCHID" was printed on the front in bold red lettering. _What am I doing? This is crazy._

Oz heard Ms. O slurping the last dregs out of her juice box before he saw her come through the door. He grabbed the file and ducked behind the juice bar.

Ms. O stomped to the juice bar and threw her box onto the floor, almost hitting Oz in the head. He crouched lower and noticed that the floor was _littered_ with juice boxes—even more than usual. Ms. O must have had a particularly hard day.

She sat down heavily and grabbed another juice. She pulled her specially made purple straw out of her pocket and jabbed it into the juice box, but missed. She tried again, and again, missing the little hole at the top each time. She began to hammer the juice box, poking it with harder and harder strokes, until finally a hole in the side popped open. Juice gushed out of the box like blood from a wound. Ms. O threw the straw to the ground.

"What am I doing?" she said to herself. "This is crazy.”

Ever so quietly, Oz reopened Orchid's file. He had to know more.

He shuffled through years of notes scribbled by Ms. O detailing Orchid’s training. The words blurred before his eyes until finally he found a single, fragile sheet of lined paper. The first entry in Orchid’s file.

 _Found a little girl on the corner between 1st and 2nd. She’s seven years old and_ d’étoile _, and probably awake as well. Update later._

So he had been right all along. He took a look at the date: May 15, 2010. Orchid was almost twelve years old, then. Her powers should have already developed to their full potency; the world should have been in deadly peril. Why hadn't her powers emerged yet?

Oz peeked over the juice bar to see Ms. O. _Of course,_ he thought. _Ms. O would do anything for Odd Squad. Even restraining a_ fille d’étoile _so much it might kill her in a few months' time._

 _Why didn't she let me help?_ he wondered in frustration. But he already knew the answer. Ms. O didn't trust him anymore. He didn't need to look inside her mind to know that. He had tried to tell her before that he was almost completely cured, but she still wouldn't let him use his powers.

He imagined Orchid, alone with the powers she had no idea how to control. An idea began to take form in his mind. It went against everything Ms. O had ever told him—to conserve his power, to not do anything rash. But Ms. O’s training had weakened Orchid, and if this kept going she could destroy her. Not to mention what could happen to the world with an awake  _fille d’étoile_ running rampant…

Oz felt a tingle of energy crackle through his fingers. He cast his senses out through headquarters, picking up on the thoughts of hundreds of agents. He would search and search until he found Orchid, and he would train her.

"Agent Oz is back in the game," he whispered.

* * *

 

**♫ Otto**

"Otto! Otto!" Oscar rushed over to Otto's desk, his detective hat askew on his head. "I need you to look up something for me," he gasped.

"Sure." Otto pulled his tablet out of his pocket and opened Google. "What do you want me to search?"

" _Fille d’étoile_ ,” replied Oscar.

He typed it into the search box. “It’s French for ‘girl of the stars’.”

“What else? Is there anything else about it?”

“Not much…” He scrolled through the search results. “There’s an obituary.”

"Whose? What does it say?" Oscar leaped forward and smushed his face against Otto's to get closer to the article.

"Lionel John Payne, 52 years old at death," Otto said. "He lived in this town his whole life, until 2010, when he died."

"What did he die of?" Oscar pushed forward and frantically scrolled down. "Here it is! Cause of death!"

"The circumstances of Grimes's death five years ago are still extremely mysterious and unknown," Otto dictated. "Ms. O (formerly Agent Oprah) of Odd Squad Precinct 13579 alone knows what happened, but has declined to release this information. Evidence shows that Grimes died of a stab wound to the chest with his own knife, sometime between 9:00 and 11:00 pm on February 2, 2010. Traces of celestial energy were found around the victim, so it is commonly accepted that the murder was committed by a _fille d’étoile_."

"That's it!" Oscar cried, jumping up. "That's Orchid! That's her murder victim! Read more, read more!"

"There's not much after this," Otto said, skimming the rest of the article. "He's survived by his brother and an adopted daughter named Till. And that's it."

"Ergh!" Oscar gritted his teeth in frustration. "Come on!"

Taking Otto's hand and practically dragging him up the stairs. "Maybe there's something about _filles d’étoile_ in Orchid's file."

"But all the files are in Ms. O's office— _ohhh_." The realization dawned on him. "But you're not allowed to go into Ms. O's office without permission! You know that!"

" _You're_ not," Oscar said, stepping onto the landing and heading toward the glass double doors of Ms. O's office. "But I'm the head scientist here. I'm _kind_  of allowed to do whatever I want."

" _Who's_ allowed to do whatever they want?" Ms. O's voice behind them made both Oscar and Otto turn around at light speed.

"Oscar," she continued, "were you about to go into my office? _Without my permission?_ "

"Um…" Oscar started digging around in his coat. "I was just, um, going to drop off this… gadget in your office!" He pulled out the un-stick-man-inator.

"Oh, okay," Ms. O said nonchalantly. "Go right ahead." Then she walked away.

Otto couldn't believe that had actually worked. Oscar ducked into the office, and he was just about to follow when he heard—

"Otto! What are you doing?" Olive slammed the door to Ms. O's office and stood in front of Otto with her hands clapped over her ears, pure anger written all over her face. "You're not allowed to go into Ms. O's office without her permission!"

"She _did_ give us her permission," he explained. Olive always had to follow the rules to the letter. But it wasn't like her to get so mad at him. "She said, 'Go right—"

"I KNOW WHAT SHE SAID!" she exploded. "I heard her. She gave Oscar permission to go in, but _not you_. And if Oscar's just dropping off a gadget, why do want to go in so badly? Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Olive, are—are you okay?"

She didn’t answer, just furrowed her brow angrily. As dignified as she could be while having her hands over her ears, she stalked back into the hall and disappeared into the crowd of agents.

* * *

 

**✎ Olive**

Olive sat at her desk, her head in her hands. The work day had ended, taking the noise and bustle of headquarters along with it. Even Todd had left her head, although his voice had been plaguing her for long enough that Olive knew he was just taking an extended absence.

How could she have said such things to Otto? She felt terrible about it now, but couldn't bring herself to go find her partner and apologize. And even if she could, she had no idea how to go about it. Otto wasn't an odd problem that could be fixed with one click of a button. The words she had said couldn't be taken back with the flick of a switch.

"I'm not very good with people," she mumbled to herself, sinking lower in her chair.

Finally, she mustered the courage to get up. She wondered where Otto might be. She hadn't seen him since their argument.

She decided to start where she had seen him last, in the hallway in front of Ms. O's office. With a new sense of direction, she hurried up the stairs and burst into Ms. O's office. But she was totally unprepared for the sight that lay in front of her.

One word: juice. The floor was wet and sticky with it, and on every surface half-drunken juice boxes oozed their contents, liquified fruit of all flavors spilling onto the floor. And in the center of it all was Ms. O, calmly paging through a manila folder like nothing had happened.

"Ms.—Ms. O?"

Ms. O looked up from her reading. "Olive! I knew you would come eventually. Read this with me."

Tentatively, Olive stepped through the maze of juice boxes and stood next to Ms. O.

"Sit!" Ms. O said. She waved over a chair (who waved back). The seat was flooded with apple juice.

"I think I'll stand, Ms. O," Olive declined politely.

Ms. O shrugged. "Whatever you want. Take a look at this." She showed Olive the file she was reading. On top was a black-and-white picture of a circle of trees flattened by what must have been some sort of explosion. Strangely, though, the trees in the center of the circle were completely unharmed.

"This was the Tunguska Event of 1908," Ms. O explained. "Fifteen megatons of energy—a blast a thousand times stronger than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb! Most scientists believe it was an asteroid that did it. Imagine their surprise when they didn’t find a crater. And there was radiation, too. No asteroid could have done that. There are conspiracy theories about aliens and UFOs, but I think you and I know the real reason for that explosion."

"A Featherite.”

"A Featherite is far from capable of making an explosion like that. This _fille d’étoile_ was awake. She was the last awake one before Orchid. She hadn't been caught for ten years; she'd been hiding in the remotest uninhabited territory of Russia. But then Oz caught some traces of energy from that area, and the best agents from every Odd Squad office banded together to terminate her."

"Oz was a _fils d’étoile_?" Olive asked in astonishment. "He never said anything about that."

"That's because I forbade him to speak of it," replied Ms. O. "He was easily the best agent this office has ever had. He was even better than Todd. He didn’t have full _d’étoile_  powers—he could only detect energy, not direct it. And there wasn't a single odd problem he couldn't solve. Then he had a soul death."

"Too bad." The words escaped her before Olive could bite them back.

"It _is_ too bad. But it was inevitable. A _d’étoile_ can only use their power so much before they start losing bits of themself. I'm just thankful Oz's soul death wasn't severe. A bad one can drive a person insane, even kill them sometimes."

She put aside the photograph to reveal a picture of about a hundred Odd Squad agents, all holding gadgets and smiling. Olive recognized Ms. O immediately, right at the front next to O'Donahue. Ms. O's expression suddenly saddened.

"This was the group who set out to Tunguska," Ms. O said. "Only about half of us came back. We lost a lot of good agents that day. The _d’étoile_ put up quite a fight, and Oz only just managed to defeat her. Look, there he is right there, in between Oren and me." She pointed to a young boy, standing in the front row on Ms. O's other side. It took Olive a couple seconds to recognize the boy as Oz. She had almost forgotten what he had looked like.

"O'Donahue almost died that day," said Ms. O, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I was there watching, and I didn't do a thing. It was Oren who saved him at the last second."

Olive looked into Ms. O's face. Instead of wrinkles to show her age, invisible scars were reflected in her eyes. She had gone through so much, seen so much more than Olive might ever see. If she looked a little deeper, it was clear that one of those scars was dedicated to O'Donahue.

"You cared about him, didn't you?" Olive said. "But… what happened?"

There was a long silence. Finally, Ms. O spoke. "Yes, Olive. I was a little in love with O'Donahue. But he never loved me back. His heart would forever belong to a girl who always cut fruit into exactly equal halves." She flipped to the next page, which showed O'Donahue with his arm around Agent Olga, in front of a painted backdrop of a meadow.

"Then," she continued, "after she was fired, he had to watch her grow up, grow old, and ultimately die." She flipped through the photos faster and faster, each showing O'Donahue next to a woman who grew older with every turn of a page. Until finally, O'Donahue stood in front of that false paradise of a backdrop, alone.

"People have searched for a fountain of youth for thousands of years. Little do they know that it's been right under their noses the whole time. But what they don't know, either, is that youth is both a blessing and a curse," Ms. O proclaimed, before falling silent again.

Olive knew better than to speak, but she knew better than to leave, too. In times like these, together with their memories, Ms. O always needed her to be there. Sometimes memories are too much for one person to bear.

Half an hour passed. Ms. O remained motionless, still staring at the photograph of O'Donahue. Olive couldn’t stand it any longer.

"I'm going to go, Ms. O. I need to apologize to Otto," she said quietly, moving toward the door. She was about to wrench it open when Ms. O finally spoke.

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Olive. It happens to the best of us."

Olive nodded. Then she swung the door open and stepped back out into the world.

* * *

 

**⬢ Oprah**

"You called us, Ms. O?" The Featherite Ambassador stood at the entrance to headquarters, flanked by three other Featherites.

"Thank you for coming, Egret," said Oprah. "Bluejay, Flamingo, Cardinal," she added, acknowledging the other three. "As you can see, we have a serious problem."

"Extremely serious," said Egret, nodding her head in that odd, bird-like way of the Featherites. "This is all your fault. Have you forgotten Tunguska?"

"I haven't forgotten," she defended. She remembered it too well. "And what's done is done. Orchid just can’t be contained anymore. I need a soul death, and I need it to happen fast."

"That's against all our rules, Ms. O," Egret replied. "The Featherites help; we don't hurt. I won't do it."

Oprah started to growl, then abruptly stopped. Better not make the Featherites mad. "Well then, what can you do? This has to be stopped!"

"The easiest option with the highest probability of success would be termination—" Egret stopped when she saw the fury on Oprah's face.

" _I will not have Orchid killed!_ "

She sighed. "There _is_ one thing I can do… where is Orchid right now?"

"In the dinosaur room. She's been confined there for the past couple weeks. Here, I'll show you."

Oprah marched down the hall, the Featherites trailing behind her. She motioned to the heavy iron door to Orchid's dinosaur room. "Here it is. Now work your magic."

Egret gave an affronted squawk, but Oprah couldn’t care less. "What are you going to do?"

"I am going to seal this door. You can open it from the outside if you enter the correct security code—” she motioned to the numbered keypad on the door—"but it'll be impossible to open from the inside. At the same time, this will prevent her breakdown from spreading to the outside world, which _will_  bring the end of the world as we know it."

“And we all know that can’t happen.”

She stepped back to let Egret work her magic. The Featherite placed her hands on the door and murmured something under her breath. Oprah saw a blue spark of energy seal the door with a hiss.

"It's done." With a snap of her fingers, all four Featherites walked back down the hallway.


	4. Glass

**❀ Orchid**

As she watched the doorframe of the dinosaur room melt into the wall, Orchid began to despair.

"What's happening? What have I done to deserve this?" she shouted to the empty air.

She looked behind her at the dinosaurs, all lined up on a high shelf. "Well?"

But the dinosaurs were silent. Their eyes dropped to the floor, all of them avoiding Orchid's gaze. The reality of her predicament suddenly came crashing down on her. She had lost even her dinosaurs as company. She willed them to disappear from existence, and they did.

She was truly alone now. She felt her face grow hot with anger. Then the dizziness, the first sign that she was losing control.

_Fight it._

_But why?_

Ms. O, in Orchid's thoughts, didn't respond.

* * *

**⚛ Oscar**

Oscar ran his finger down the edge of the knife he had brought. Blood beaded on his fingertip and trickled down his hand. It had never been used before, although Oscar liked to pretend he had killed the Hydraclops with it.

It was still sharp, even after all these years…

He wiped his bloodied hand on his trousers. The most important thing would be to make sure Orchid was asleep, and slept until she died. If she screamed, someone would definitely come running and find out. It would be tricky, but it could be done.

Oscar's breathing echoed through the darkened hall. He checked his watch—nearly midnight. She should be asleep by now—or would she? Did  _filles d’étoile_  not need sleep? Oscar wished he knew more.

Well, he had to take the risk. He couldn't risk being caught out here by the night shift. Trying to make his footsteps as soundless as possible, he walked the few steps to the door and aimed his penlight at the security keypad. After a brief mental calculation, he punched in 3 + 8. The door unlocked with a soft click. Oscar stepped inside and closed the door behind him, careful to turn the handle before closing it to prevent any noise. Still, the metal scraping against metal made a raspy grating sound, and Oscar winced.

He turned around himself, scanning the room with his penlight. He saw Orchid immediately—she was curled up on the floor. He drew his knife and crept toward her sleeping place.

She looked so peaceful, dead asleep without a care in the world. She looked so different than the monster Oscar knew she was that he was taken aback. He almost put away his knife…

But then his common sense came back to him. Kneeling on the floor, he gently turned Orchid over and swept her hair from her neck. He readied the knife, hovering the point over the vulnerable spot at the base of her skull.

He had one chance to do this. If Orchid woke up, all would be lost. He raised the knife over his head, ready to deliver the killing strike.

And then she woke up.

Oscar scrambled backward, and at that moment his penlight battery died. The beam of white light fizzled into blackness.

Oscar cursed and ran his hand against the wall, feeling for the door handle. His left hand closed against something smooth and metal, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He made to turn it—but the handle was stuck tight. Panicking, he dropped the knife and tried to use both hands to pry open the door, aware of Orchid getting to her feet behind him.

Then the realization hit him.

 _The door couldn't be opened from the inside._  That was the whole point of this room. He should have left the door open. Now he was trapped. Dropping his knife, he curled up into a little ball, hoping the smaller he made himself, the less likely it was that Orchid would find him. It  _was_  pitch-dark, after all.

Orchid's dark shape had been moving through the room this whole time. In front of Oscar's disbelieving eyes, she flickered to life. Her eyes lit up, her pupils turning an electric blue. Laser beams, searchlights, shot from her eyes.

Then slowly, she took shape. The electric blue first curled around her wrists in tendrils of smoke. It ignited her bones and spread throughout her body until her entire skeleton was illuminated. The glow from her body cast light and shadows over the whole room.

Orchid slowly walked toward Oscar, curled up on the floor. Each step echoed in the thundering silence. She stopped in front of him, her eye-beams pointing straight at his face. They were so bright Oscar had to shield his eyes.

With one hand, she pinned Oscar to the wall. With the other, she snatched up his knife from the floor. Without a word, she positioned the knife above his jugular, poised to strike.

Faced with imminent death, Oscar finally found his voice.

He let out an earsplitting yell.

* * *

**⥉ Oz**

Oz woke up around midnight with the feeling that something was very wrong.

He tried to shake it off, but the feeling refused to leave. He got up from his bed and stepped into his slippers. It always entertained him to see his slippers disappear as he got into them, but the feeling of wrongness was so strong that he barely noticed.

He walked out of his room silently. He knew something was out of place. This feeling always happened every once in a while, when something about his life was really off. But it had never been this strong.

Oz headed down the hallway to Octavia's room. A few agents, himself and Octavia included, stayed at headquarters overnight if they had nowhere to go home to.

A light was shining under the door. Octavia was an insomniac—she usually didn’t get to sleep until three or four in the morning. He could hear her humming a happy little tune. So that wasn't the problem. What else could it be?

Then he heard a scream from downstairs. Before he fully knew what he was doing, he had raced down the stairs and found himself standing outside the door to the dinosaur room.

The door was locked. He banged on it, then kicked it, trying to break it down. The door didn't yield. He wished he had real  _d’étoile_  powers. He sighed in frustration—then saw the keypad on the door. Oz slapped a hand onto his head, punched in the code, and pushed open the door. Then he ran inside.

Once past the threshold, he gasped in pain as the thrumming energy contained in that room overwhelmed him. He braced himself against the wall, breathing hard.

He collected his bearings just in time to see Orchid plunge a knife into the head scientist’s throat.

"NO!" he shouted. With a strength he didn't know he had, he leaped at Orchid and tackled her to the floor. Her head thwacked against the ground and knocked her unconscious.

He pulled out the bloodstained knife from Oscar’s neck and tried to use his hands to staunch the bleeding. Blood bubbled out of the scientist's mouth as he fought for breath.

That was the second time in five minutes that Oz wished he was a true  _fils d’étoile_. His hands were too weak, and couldn't heal the wound or stop the blood pouring from Oscar's neck and draining his life force.

He caught a glimpse of Orchid's unconscious body out of the corner of his eye. Suddenly an idea popped into his head. He looked back at Oscar, who had stopped struggling now. Anyone could see he was mere seconds from death. Oz abandoned his side and placed a bloodstained hand on top of Orchid's small one.

It took only a couple seconds. The energy that rocked him at their touch was almost too much to bear, but he grit his teeth and forced himself to stay connected.

With his whole body thrumming with Orchid’s power, Oz wrenched his hand away and scrambled back to Oscar's side. He planted his hands firmly on Oscar's neck and begun to heal him.

The blue  _d’étoile_  energy that was so familiar to Oz—yet strange as he hadn't seen it in so long—wreathed around Oscar's throat. It returned the freshly-spilled blood to the scientist's body. It closed up the wound in his neck. There wouldn’t be a scar.

Oscar gasped awake.

"Someone's touching me," he said. "Ghost! Ghost—"

"Shut up, Oscar, it's just me!"

"Oh, Oz. Why—why are you here? I was about to—the knife—"

"Stop," said Oz, without really meaning to. A bit of energy flew from his hand and froze Oscar in his spot.

"Whoops." He was rustier than he thought. "Okay. This works. Oscar." He snapped his fingers. "You were not here, in Orchid's room, tonight. You were at home, asleep, this whole time." He drew that bit of Oscar's memory into his waiting hand and banished him from the room. Oz could only hope he wasn't so rusty that he had screwed up and sent him to the Saharan Desert. Or accidentally modified his memory so much that he forgot who he was.

A stir in the shadows made Oz turn around. He focused his attention back on Orchid's waking figure.

He laid his hand on top of hers again, and—carefully this time—drained her energy.

The blue light of her bones dissipated. Her tortured face slowly relaxed into an expression that could fool someone into thinking she was in a deep, peaceful sleep.

Oz, shuddering violently with the effort, drew out her power until not a drop remained in her veins.

Then she woke up, for real this time.

As her eyes popped open, all the lights in the room flickered on. She looked around at the seemingly empty room, then her eyes traveled down to her bloodied hands.

"What happened?"

* * *

How could he explain it to her? Oz put his hand on top of her own, to show her that he was there.

"Who's that? Who's touching me?"

"My name is Oz. I'm an agent here on the squad, but I'm invisible. I'm Octavia's partner. You know Octavia, right?"

"Of course." She paused for a moment and frowned. "Sherman?"

"No, I'm Oz."

"Whatever you say. What happened to me? I feel…" Orchid flexed her fingers. "Better than I have in ages, actually. It's so weird… did I have a soul death?"

"No, Orchid. Trust me, a soul death feels much worse than this. I just temporarily drained your—"

"You're a  _fille d’étoile_ ," she interrupted.

"A  _fils_ , actually. I’m a boy. And I’m not really  _d’étoile_. I was only born with the ability to detect and—

“—Manipulate energy,” finished Orchid. “I know.”

He blinked. “How do you know that?"

"I don't know. Just a guess, I guess." Orchid shrugged, but Oz wasn't convinced.

"You read my mind. Don't worry," he added as Orchid opened her mouth to object. "You're not in trouble. Have you ever done that before?"

Orchid didn't respond. She sat back, a horrified expression on her face.

"I did that?" she whispered. Curious to what she was talking about, Oz picked up on her thoughts—and the darkness came flooding back. Her blue skeleton, sinking the knife into Oscar's throat. Oz arriving in the nick of time and knocking her away.

"It's okay! It's okay," he said, aware that Orchid had just read his thoughts again. "It was just a little setback. No big deal. To the rest of the world, nothing happened."

"But to  _me_  it happened," replied Orchid. "I almost killed him. And I put you in danger, Sherman." She turned away, her back to Oz. "I've become the monster Oscar believed I was."

"That's not true, Orchid. You're not a monster. None of us are. You just need a little training. Ms. O's cooped you up in here far too long. She should have let me help," he said, a bitter edge creeping into his voice.

"She still doesn't trust you," she said. Then she ducked her head. "Sorry. That kind of snuck in."

"You can hear Ms. O's thoughts?"

"It wasn't on purpose!"

"Don't freak out, I believe you. Let's learn how to make it on purpose." Oz placed a hand on her shoulder and fed the tiniest bit of power back into her. "Let's see…" He looked around for training ideas. But the room was as bare and empty as a prison cell.

"This room used to be decorated, didn’t it? Why did you get rid of everything?"

"The less stuff in this room there is, the less there is for me to destroy."

"Well, you won't be destroying anything on my watch. So, I want you to bring back the decorations. I'll help you."

Orchid closed her eyes and furrowed her brow in concentration. Oz sent her images of the dinosaur room as it had once been, and they pushed against her mind and burrowed into her brain until the thought must have been all-consuming.

Ever so slowly, the room came back to life. Turf spread out on the ground. Wallpaper unfurled onto the whitewashed walls. Dinosaurs everywhere appeared on the shelves, yawning and stretching as if they had been awoken from a long sleep.

For the first time in weeks, Orchid smiled.

* * *

**❀ Orchid**

As the days went by, Orchid practiced.

She practiced all day and throughout the night, until the first rays of dawn broke over the horizon, until the days and nights blended together and she couldn't tell which was which. She trained with Oz when he was there, and practiced alone when he wasn’t. She practiced for hours and hours on end, only succumbing to sleep when she physically couldn’t go on any longer.

For her, taking a break meant giving up. And Orchid was  _not_  the kind of agent to ever give up.

And the rewards were soon obvious. After three weeks, she stopped losing control. When she had gone a full month without a mistake, she was sure she was ready to do the one thing that had fueled her persistence all this time.

She was ready to face the world again. She could stop her breakdown. She was strong enough. The real challenge would be breaking the spell on the door.

Oz had tried to break it himself using her power, but the magic was too strong. "This spell was cast by Egret, the Featherite leader," he had said. "She's very good at this. Insanely good, in fact. I don't have the power to undo it, even using your energy."

So during their training, they just had to be very, very careful to leave the door open a crack.

* * *

"Are you sure you're ready for this?"

"Surer than I'll ever be, Sherman."

Oz sighed. "I can see there's no way I'll be able to talk you out of this. I'll wait on the other side of the door in case anything… goes wrong."

Orchid rolled her eyes. Oz could be so ridiculous sometimes. "What happened to the careless agent who accidentally pointed the invisible-inator at himself?"

Oz just shook his head, smiled, and stepped beyond the threshold. But before closing the door, he stopped and turned back to face Orchid.

"Orchid, I think you should know—" He stopped short.

"Know what?"

"Never mind. Good luck."

Curious, she tried to pry into his mind. But Oz had shielded it well. She stomped hard on his foot, diverting his attention for a second—just long enough for one thought to slip out.

"What was that for!?" he shouted.

"For being such a scaredy-cat, of course. Get a move on, Sherman. I'll be out of here before you know it." Orchid grasped the handle firmly and shut the door closed.

She lay her hand on the door and took a deep breath. As she inhaled, she felt only confidence. But as she exhaled, she thought of what she had seen in Oz’s mind.

He believed she was going to fail.

* * *

The spell wreathed around her—a suffocating, cold blueness that solidified into a wall of hardest steel. It was all around her, trapping her in.

She rammed her mind against the walls and reeled with pain from the impact. Collecting her bearings, she tried it again. She didn't even make a dent.

She ran her mind along the cold, smooth metal, searching for weaknesses. There were none.

Oz had been right. The Featherite leader must have been insanely good to build this.

And remembering Oz, she recalled a story he had once told her.

"The last awake  _d’étoile_  before you was a girl named Masha. She lived all alone in northern Siberia at the turn of the twentieth century, and she let her powers grow raw and rampant. Dangerous.

“I was still young when she was around, and I picked up on her energy and managed to pinpoint her location. The Ms. O back then—Old Missie, we called her—rounded up the best agents from precincts all over the world. Even though I was fairly new to the squad, I was allowed to come because I was the one who found her, and so was my partner, Ottilie.

"We brought with us a single gadget—a very powerful, very deadly gadget that is the only known way to defeat an awake  _d’étoile_.

"Masha was about eight years old, a little older than you, but very strong. She knew we were coming long before we came out of the closest tube entrance. She had spent eight years in the freezing mountains, letting her isolation chill her heart. So when we attacked her, she slaughtered us.

"It was dozens of us against one of her, yet she almost won. And, not to brag, but it was me who kind of saved the day. Although I'm not very proud of how I did it.

“Ottilie was being targeted by Masha because she was in possession of the gadget at the time. I heard her scream, and I turned just in time to see her flung against a tree and fall dead. The gadget was crushed beneath her body.

"I don't know what happened afterward. All I know is I lost control for the first time in years. I was just so angry, Orchid. She had killed my partner. She killed so many agents… and Ms. O said I just ran at her like a charging bull and tackled her to the ground. With one hand I drew out all her energy and redirected it straight into her brain.

"And then the whole place exploded."

Orchid let her mind still. She knew what she had to do.

* * *

_We don't have all day, Orchid._

_Seriously? Come on._

_Orchid, this isn't Bring Your Grandpa to Work Day._

_But I did_ you _a favor._

_You're just a foolish little girl!_

The voices pounded inside her head. Right before she lost control, she felt the walls give.

Orchid was blown backward as the door shattered like glass.


End file.
